Sunday, August 28, 2011

# Summertime #

#...and the living is easy #

For some it would seem so. A certain someone will be going back to work on Tuesday after a summer off which has seen him have lots of lie-ins, spend an inordinate amount of time checking E-bay auctions for things he has no intention of buying, played a fair amount of Harry Potter on the Wii and remade a trailer. The list of things that needed doing while he was off is still waiting ....maybe for Christmas?

I, on the other hand, seem to have been fairly busy with work and children and the garden (and house but lets not bother about that now) shows that. With the end of summer fast approaching, I decided to leave all lazy people and their computers in the house this afternoon and join the chickens in a spot of gardening. Who knew chickens were so good at weeding?

Mildred is looking quite pleased with herself.....

The main veggie patch is fairly overgrown.

The brocolli has gone to seed but the honey bees love the yellow flowers and the hens like hiding underneath it so I have left it for a bit longer.....we can see you Snowy!

The green beans are doing well. We have loads of them in the freezer already for winter. They don't taste as good as fresh off the plant but much better than nothing and fab in soups and things. The leeks are growing well and those two cabbage that you can see are huge!!

When we got back from our holidays, the courgette plants were full of marrow-sized fruit that I cut off and stuffed as well as making some damson and marrow jam from a few but now the plants have just about had it.....much like the boat you can see there!

This is the raspberry patch. Next in-line for the chop. Everything that I read seems to say that raspberries are extremely difficult to grow but this started as half a dozen plants a few years ago and is now seriously encroaching on the rest of the garden! I am going dig the self-sets up and replant them behind the original ones, after disposing of the boat.......

This is the sorry sight that is the greenhouse.Normally at this time of year it is full of ripe cherry tomatoes and cucumbers but I foolishly agreed to grow stupid baby plum tomatoes and they are rubbish. I am tempted to just pull this lot up and admit that we're not going to have any tomatoes this year. Next year I shall do what I want and not have people interfering with my plant plans ;)